Anti-vaccination, women’s right and trans - an analogy?

[RealityHasALiberalBias]

A few weeks ago there was a thread asking for historical analogies to the trans activist phenomenon.

This morning, it occurred to me that there are parallels with the anti-vaccination movement. I am unfortunately very familiar with this movement as my sister is a fervent anti-vaxer.

The anti-vax movement has gained traction because of the modern, Western privilege of living in prosperous times where we don’t suffer regular epidemics of dangerous infectious diseases. This is largely as a result of decades of vaccination programmes. But the programmes are a victim of their own success - now that the current generation of parents has no memory or experience of these diseases, many of them see the vaccinations as unnecessary and / or dangerous.

Feminism has a very long way to go, but perhaps the current genderism is as result of femisms successes to date? Privileged, middle class young people who have not (yet) experienced the restrictions and dangers of the patriarchy widen the definition of trans to include anyone who doesn’t dress like Barbie or GI Joe. They see single sex safe spaces as wholly unnecessary, because they are privileged enough never to have needed them.

Like the anti-vax movement, there is a large number of well-meaning but misinformed people who sort-of subscribe to the ideology, while a small number of zealots with extreme views fan the flames online and in the media.

Like the anti-vax movement, science is of no concern whatsoever, except where a dodgy paper appears to bolster their position.

Like the anti-vax movement (and also climate deniers), the TRAs are able to influence the media to a degree completely out of proportion to their numbers, making the ideology seem far more widespread than it is.

Like the anti-vax movement, children are likely to be the most damaged victims of the craze.

Thoughts? I suppose the hope is that, like the anti-vax movement, the whole thing will blow over and be left to the cranks after a few years. Though of course there is still a lot of work to be done to restore vaccination rates to their previous levels.

If only one of the similarities was due to feminism's great success. I think the analogy breaks down for that issue. Women have advanced compared to 40 years ago in that more jobs are open to them. That's about it, really. Pay gap? Still disgraceful. Crimes against women? Still overwhelming enough to deprive women of their civil rights (see eg #MeToo, clutching Mace when trying to get home at night). Porn? Vastly worse. Objectification? Much worse. Sexual relationships with men? Seem even more poisoned than they were.

But when it comes to the anti-science aspect, yes, they're so similar it's eerie. TRAs are the Flat Earthers of the "progressive" left.

Another parallel:

With the anti-vaxxers, it's unlikely that they will be the ones affected. Instead it'll be the more vulnerable who will suffer as a result, while the anti-vaxxers may never notice anything amiss.

I totally agree. As a scientist I've been alarmed at how many of these anti-vaxers fail to see that too many not being not being vaccinated threatens the herd immunity. I've come across a few online and they claim to know more than doctors and virologists because they've some dodgy website.

Personally I blame Oprah for a lot of this woolly thinking!

I see the parallel differently. Questioning vaccination is no longer possible in polite society in my experience. Even genuine concerns. We are going this way with transgenderism.

I agree Pratchet

The anti vaxxers are as much to do with authoritarianism in medicine and science as they are to do with the diseases not being present in people’s minds IMO.

Doctors and scientist have been quite protective over their learned status and contemptuous about people needing to do as they are told. They often have a lot of anxiety regarding people not following advice (because they deal with the consequences at their worst) and they often try and trick people into doing what they want them to do rather than helping them make an informed choice as they are now required to do.

This has fostered a cycle of mistrust re vaccination of children irrespective of what the science actually says. It is effectively a total breakdown in communication.

Re the trans stuff it’s a culmination of identity politics and individualism (and MRA). And it is different, the anti vaxxers for example are exposing their own DC and others who may not be able to tolerate the vaccines to a risk of diseases, if there are enough of them then these diseases will not be eradicated when they could have been. Re TRA they are actually having success in changing the actual structures of society in order to impose their ideology on everyone. Anti vaxxers simply choose not avail themselves of a service which is not mandatory and this means the herd immunity is not as effective.

I thin

Oh dear, again.
The parallel for me is that the side which suppresses debate and discussion won.

Each side says they want to protect children.
Each side has its citations and studies.
Each side believes the other is damaging to health.
In each case, one side wants debate and more studies. The other side doesn't. One side says debate and discussion kills children. And that side won.

This is the parallel in my opinion and it's why we should really be worried.

I can see it being done now. Damages children, harms children, mustn't talk about it because children's lives are at stake.

And another parallel: the money involved in the side that wants no debate.

Whatever one's views on vaccination, you must be able to see the parallels?

My Oh dear was because I keep whoops posting

I'm an anti vaxer. I saw my son turn from a normal, healthy one year old, into a grown man still in nappies and completely non verbal, aggressive, anxious.

If I could turn the clock back, he'd have that mmr jan over my cold, dead body and he did not have the booster.

This is MY opinion and choice. I'd fight for the right to choose.

My point was that this is how doctors and scientists treat the general public on all matters. It is not specific to anti-vaxxers. It’s an attitude problem regarding the special status they feel they deserve as ‘the authority’.

They scoff at the ‘idiotic’ public who ‘don’t understand the science’ without making any effort to help people understand, without including people in their own care and for a lot of the time actively excluding and manipulating people in order to keep them in the dark so that they retain the ‘special status’.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer btw but you will encounter the same attitude from medicine and science over smears, GMO, safe sleep etc basically anything where people don’t want to just do what they are told.

I don't get it. You mean 'the authority' in terms of, there must be no questioning? Are we violently agreeing here.

MrsDilber: I'm so sorry. Women like you who speak up despite the general scoffing in your direction from doctors, have no doubt helped give others the confidence to make their own decisions. It's very brave.

you will encounter the same attitude from medicine and science over smears, GMO, safe sleep etc basically anything where people don’t want to just do what they are told

Word

Yes, I think we are.

Their own sense of being ‘the authority’.

It’s often seen as a God complex but I have three doctors in the family and it is also driven by high levels of anxiety re the duty to patients created by seeing what happens when things go wrong.

@offred i agree with yr post so much..

if the insistence to vaccinate or be demonised isnt working they need to look at people's fears

MrsDilber, problems like your son's should never happen. Medicine ought to know enough by now to prevent that. I'm really really sorry for your and his troubles.

The connection to vaccination though, is timing of the occurrence. There are developmental issues (caused by infection or any number of other things) that surface around the same age as vaccinations are given.

If the vaccinations were the cause, there'd be multi-megamillion awards handed down by juries to the victims. There are mountains of research papers that show vaccines are not the cause, to the same level of certainty as that evolution has happened, and to a higher level of certainty than the reality of human-caused climate change (which is in the 99% range by now).

So, really, seriously, honestly, it's nothing you did, nothing you could have avoided by not vaccinating. Doesn't make it less hard to live with, I know.

With research it comes from the discipline being their ‘life’s work’ and an arrogant attitude pervasive in academia.

Op I assume we don’t agree re trans issues but do agree re vaccinations. I imagine that there are a higher proportion of antivaxxers on the extremes of both sides of the debate because both will have a higher proportion than average of people who have felt hurt and don’t trust the main societal structures we have to look after us.

As an aside what on Earth is meant by tra? Is it just the people who are cited on here as making repulsive threats online or is it meant to include the many of us who argue against the tide on here?

TRAs are the activists like the distinction between MRAs and men generally.

(Activists for a particular type of ideology re trans issues, like the MRAs are activists for a particular type of ideology re issues affecting men.)

Quixote: you know nothing of MrsDilber's son's medical history and nothing about her son. You are not on a position to be giving reassurances. You cannot possibly know.

Far from: how patronising. The shared quality I see between feminists and vaccine questioners is critical thinking.

but what does that actually mean and how do you decide who is one unless they say they are? People here are accused of being tras and I’ve never seen threats of violence or anything close here (would obviously condemn to the hills if I did)